Friday, November 09, 2007

An Odd Reaction...

I've just sat down in seat 15C to find the man sitting next to me reading my column in today's Daily Telegraph. Do you think...

A) I poked him in the arm and said "that's me, that is!"
B) He looked across and said: "fantastic article, mate"
C) He turned the page having not made it to the end

Well the answer is none of the above. Bizarrely, I was rather embarrassed and proceeded to stick my head in Tony Benn's Diaries.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

I haven't read it myself but I will later. I do hope it's a discourse on Cameron's lurch to the left on education policy!

Daily Referendum said...

I'd have gone for the that's me that is. But I'm shameless.

Wrinkled Weasel said...

Read it. Well done. Any legislation that curbs free speech is bad and I think will not ultimately help the community it seeks to protect - it will probably create more acrimony than sympathy.

By the way, being a poof is one thing, and I am creating coping mechanisms for that, but owning up to being a "social liberal" AND admiring Yasmin AlibibbleWibble is causing me to cough into my Telegraph. Next you will be asking us to hug an asylum seeker and use the NHS, or place our children in schools that have poor people in them. Careful!

Anonymous said...

Well, if he didn't make it to the end after all that's probably because your columns are usually a fair bit more thoughtful and nuanced than most of the opinion in the Telegraph and so take a bit more effort to read!

On a point of info the US constitution does enshrine free speech but it has never been recognised by courts as an unrestricted freedom - as the jury who fined members of the Westboro Baptist Church $11 million this week for anti-gay 'hate speech' showed.

The other point to make is that there is really no danger that Yasmin or Hastilow would be in trouble with the Equality Commission, or anyone who made anti-gay jokes or satire under the new law - as with the racial hatred act, this is really about prohibiting racial hatred targeted against a *specific* person or community. It won't even affect the BNP, who will still find ways to imply exactly what they mean while falling short of the law. It might however stop someone standing outside a gay man's door and shouting 'poof!' at him - but is that the 'type of speech', as Americans would ask, that deserves protection?

Anonymous said...

shameless plug

Anonymous said...

He knew it was you and was going to call you a "big girls blouse" but the threat of arrest made him change his mind. Will the legislation be retrospective? Have a good trip.

Anonymous said...

You should have said: "my mum thinks that's a good picture of me, but I'm not sure; what's your opinion?"

Anonymous said...

You should not be embarassed about any articles you write that are printed in a daily newspaper Iain. You should be proud.

kinglear said...

At the risk of offending, and not that I agree, he said " What a load of *******!" And he had no idea who you were!

Andy said...

My god you love talking about yourself! Look at me...I'm in the Telegraph..I am I am!

Anonymous said...

Come on Iain ... we need to hear your take on the 'Conservative Cooperative Movement'.

IMHO the best policy strategy for many years.

Anonymous said...

I am really impressed with David Cameron and the 'Conservative Cooperative Movement'. Brilliant.

Cameron is a true reflection of my generation and I wish him well.

Anonymous said...

Are you coming back?

Nick Drew said...

and then you wonder why you're not an MP yet!

Seriously, your modesty does you credit, I'm sure

Sir-C4' said...

And I thought I was an egotist

Alex said...

You should have asked if he wanted you to sign it.

Anonymous said...

But you have told us your seat number. i wonder why?

Scary Biscuits said...

Tamurlane, The US constitution emphatically does enshrine free speech and it is not selective. (Pornography is allowed under these laws for example.) The anti-gay group you refer to was not fined for expressing their opinions but for "invasion of privacy" and "causing emotional distress" (i.e. gategrashing a soldier's funeral).

Speech is either free or it is not. There is no half-way house of saying some types 'deserve' protection, because as soon as you do this you make it subjective.

Also, as Janet Daley has argued in The Times, it is precisely the offensive types of free speech that need protection, as that is how society progresses. I am sure that the cardinals found Gallileo's opinions on the earth rotating around the sun just as offensive as modern lefties find the word "poof". But if we are to have progress in human thought we must allow both.

Anonymous said...

Fifteen hours after the original posting, and silence has fallen as readers in five continents wait agog to hear what the man did next.

Did he:

D. Tear the article out of the paper, kiss it tenderly and put it away in his breast pocket?

E. Draw horns on your photograph?

F. Look around, recognise you and swear undying devotion to you and the party?

G. Recognise you, retreat to the door and get off at the next station?

H. Compare you with the photograph and say, 'Sorry, mate, I thought for a moment you were that gay Tory ****, but now I see you don't look like him at all'?

I. Fold the paper into a cone and discreetly vomit into it?

The world is waiting.

Anonymous said...

Seat 15C? You are posh. Round here the public toilets don't have numbers. Can you reserve them, too?

Clothilde Simon

Anonymous said...

Hi Scarybiscuits, don't know if anyone is still reading this thread but - the US Bill of Rights does itself enshrines free speech. In the 220-odd years since then a series of court cases have developed a series of distinctions between protected and non-protected speech acts. Pornography is indeed allowed but is under many (entirely constitutional) restrictions as are other forms of 'obscene' speech. One-on-one personally racist abuse comes under a category of speech defined by the Supreme Court as 'fighting words' and is not constitutionally protected.